Chimney
by marauders.padfootsb
Summary: She smokes like a chimney and drinks too much whiskey. He's too smart for his own good. They may not be perfect for each other, but they aren't good for anyone else. She loves him, and he loves her, and they both know that was the only way it could be. Disclaimer. Rated T. Angst & romance. Long drabble.


She smokes like a chimney, because they tell her not to. She doesn't do it all the time; she's not addicted, even though they tell her that's what addicts say. She saves her fags for nights like these when the stars are out, and there's not a cloud in sight, and the roaring of a party she doesn't like anyone at is under her. She's wearing a long, silk dress that's the colour of champagne and compliments her fiery hair perfectly. She doesn't like how it poofs, though, and that's mostly why she's filled her claw foot tub to the brim with warm water. She gets in and sinks down, admiring the dark sky out of the window she's opened.

There are footsteps, a knock she ignores, and then the creak of the door. He's wearing his dress pants and shoes; his jacket is off, and his shirt is unbuttoned halfway. He goes over to the sink, turns the gold faucet handle, and washes his hands. Picking up the cigarettes and the lighter, he walks over to the sixteen year old girl, a year younger than he.

"This again?"

She inhales hers and blows the smoke in his face.

"Yes."

"You're supposed to be downstairs," he reminds her, shaking the now flaming lighter at her. He can see the fire reflecting in her eyes.

"I don't care. I hate parties like these. It's just an excuse for the adults to show their kids off to everyone and get drunk off their arses."

But he knows all of that. He knows everything about her.

"That's fun," he says, holding up an opened bottle of firewhiskey.

"Nick that from the kitchen?" she asks, her voice cold. She breathes out another stream of filthy smoke, not caring what it's doing to her body. This action makes him frown, but if he cares, he doesn't say so.

"'Course," he answers, pulling out two shot glasses from his back pocket. "Want one?"

She nods impulsively. He pours it, some sloshing out onto her expensive gown, but she laughs and dumps it out further. There's a stain now that surely won't wash out, but that's not her problem.

He chuckles and pours more. This one she downs in a single gulp.

"Where'd you learn how to do that, love?" he asks her, and she grins wickedly.

"You don't know the company I keep," she replies, a hint of laughter laced in her words.

"I don't?"

"No. You don't know anything about me."

He knows she's lying, because he knows her better than she knows herself, but again, he doesn't say so.

"Ah," he mutters, pouring them each another.

"Once," she says after the second is gone, "a teacher told us that two of these babies is equivalent to two glasses of wine, which is equivalent to two beers. Do you remember that?"

"Yeah, Lils," he tells her. He remembers how he had to stay with her on the cold stone floor of the girls' lavatory, because she was puking mercilessly after testing this theory. He shivers the memory off and pours another.

"My body is being shot to Hell, Ly."

"I know."

.:.

She hates how the vast majority of her cousins are already graduated, and she's stuck with only a few of them at Hogwarts for another year. The only good thing, she decides, is that it's a year caught in between major exam years, so there won't be much to do. She hardly ever sleeps anymore, so on the first night, she tiptoes downstairs in her short shorts and tank top to sit by the fire. It's warm and inviting and much better than listening to Emma Finnigan snore.

The chair to her right moves ever so slightly, but she catches it anyway.

"I see my dear, eldest brother lent you the Cloak?" she calls out, and sure enough, he emerges, wearing only blue boxers that match his House colour perfectly.

"Blimey, how did you know?" he asks before plopping down next to her. "I though I was doing a splendid job."

"Bloody hell, the chair moved half an inch."

He considers this before nodding slowly. "Sure."

"How did you know the password?"

"Hugo."

She mentally files a note that tells her to punch Hugo right on his freckled nose.

"What are you doing here?" she asks him, and he relaxes slightly, coming to the conclusion that she isn't going to hex him.

"It's freezing in that tower, and we don't keep our fires burning all night. It could burn the tower down."

"Ever the logical ones," she replies with a smirk.

"And cold ones," he adds as an afterthought. "So… What're you doing here, love?"

"It's my tower, and I can be wherever I want." He pauses, waiting for her to tell him the truth. "I can't sleep."

As if reading her mind, he hands the girl a sleeping draught. She grins.

"How did you know?"

"I know everything about you, remember?"

She kisses him lightly on the cheek before running up the right staircase.

He sits, watching her go.

.:.

_She's not yours, and she is entitled to shag whoever she pleases. Besides, you're just friends; she's like your little sister, _he reminds himself, over and over again. He has caught many people while doing his rounds this year as Head Boy, but this was the only one so far to leave him literally shaking.

"Ly, wait!" she calls, wearing Lorcan'squidditch jersey over her naked figure. Her fiery hair is stuck up all over the place, and her cheeks are covered in smeared makeup.

"What, love?" he asks, whipping around. His voice is so full of venom that she stops dead in her tracks.

"I-I'm sorry."

"For what?"

Her eyebrows knit together, and she replies, "For doing that."

"What makes you think I care, Lily?"

She smiles softly. "It's pretty damn obvious."

"He's my brother, and he hasn't been laid in ages, so I'm happy for him. I don't even know what we are, so who in the bloody hell cares?" He just keeps yelling and yelling; Peeves flies over but leaves quickly at the sight of the pair.

All of the sudden, she bursts into tears. He's never seen her cry - not even once, for someone with such a miserable outlook on life. He quits yelling just as promptly as he started, but she keeps sobbing.

"I'm such an idiot, Ly, but I didn't _shag _him," she mutters, to herself and to him. He goes over and wraps her up into a hug and just lets her cry, right in the middle of the hallway in the dead of night.

"Shh, Lils, it's okay," he says, trying to soothe her.

.:.

"Again, and on school property?" he asks, sitting next to her beside the Black Lake.

"There're dorms and a common room right underneath there." She breathes a long stream of smoke.

"You could get caught."

"Dom said it's cold there."

He chuckles; she's not listening to a word being said. She sprawls out on the blanket she's laid down, red plaid. She's wearing denim shorts and a white tank top; it's a weekend, and no one's around to care.

"I've been there," he tells her, and she shudders.

"Why?"

"James needed a prank pulled. Ever the Gryffenclaw, I helped."

She laughs, light and airy. Sometimes she reminds him scarily of his mother, but other times she doesn't at all.

"I've been there, too," she says, a smile playing on her pink lips. He can only imagine why she was down there, and she doesn't supply a reason.

"What's been going on?" He hasn't seen her in weeks, not since the incident.

"I'm with Lorcan," she informs him, and he quickly smiles. Too quickly.

"Great," he supplies, standing up. "I'll see you around, love."

"Okay."

.:.

She's not sure why she put on a dress oh so similar to the one she wore so many nights ago, but she does. Her fiery hair is, once again, in an elegant bun on the top of her head. Her milky white skin shines, and she looks pretty damn good, if she has to say so herself. Of course, she might not, because her vision is blurred, and she can't think straight. A glass of wine is tightly grasped in one hand, and a cigarette dangles from the other. The Yule Ball is so crowded, and it's so late. Late enough the teachers have left, leaving the Head Boy and Girl to make sure no wrongdoings go on.

"You look great, love," he tells her, and she nods.

"You don't look half bad yourself."

"Do you want to dance?"

He leads her out onto the floor before she can answer, and they're immediately too close and he's spinning her too fast, but they don't care. Everyone is watching them. _Wild Lily Luna and perfect Lysander? _ He hears the whispers, so he twirls her faster and faster, so maybe the voices are mixed to her ears. He isn't so sure she can take all of it.

Before the song ends, Lorcan comes and whisks her away from him, a frown plastered on his face. He doesn't care, really, because she's his anyway, and what was he thinking, dancing with her? He grabs the nearest giggling blonde and puts his lips on hers, and he's sure the cherry lipgloss has never tasted so sweet. He ignores _her _hazel and green and blue gaze on him and the girl, because it hurts to look.

They dance and dance, and the blonde grins at him mischievously. "Want to go somewhere more… private?"

"'Course," he answers and drags her off to the nearest abandoned classroom before his Head Boy genes can kick in, causing him to change his mind.

She doesn't care that he's left with that slut, because he's perfect and Lysander Scamander and entitled to do anything and everything with a girl like that. So she turns to Lorcan, a carbon copy of his twin, and kisses him full on the mouth.

"Come with me," he whispers huskily in her ear, and she nods eagerly, not even bothering to ask where they'll be going.

.:.

"Sorry about that," she tells him in her newt-level potions class the next day.

"'Bout what? All you did was get me a good shag, love."

For a minute, he thinks she's forgotten where she's at, but she quickly recovers and dumps the vampire fangs in her cauldron.

"Glad to know I could help."

"Yeah," he mutters.

They don't speak after that, and he's pretty sure that instead of making her jealous, he's just pissed the redhead off. This theory is proven correct when, after Slughorn dismisses the class, she flips him off and gets the hell out of there, not even bothering to look back.

.:.

"Do you need help with that?" he asks her. She's carrying a stack of books in her arms, putting them away one by one.

"_Your _help? Hell no," she answers. He frowns at her.

"So I said the wrong thing. Sue me."

"Maybe I will."

He sighs; he never says the right thing by her.

"Lils, please," he begs, and she sets the pile onto the table and looks up at him.

"Don't you have a girl to shag?" she questions him, her eyes meeting his.

"Only one," he replies, his eyes twinkling, but she slaps his cheek.

"I'm with Lor," she tells him for the thousandth time.

"I know that, for Merlin's sake."

"You don't seem to," she snarls. "I'm dating your _brother_, and you just cannot help yourself! You won't quit flirting and talking to me and all this other stuff. Do you get it? Do you get how hard that makes it on me?"

He doesn't answer her endless amount of questions and instead kisses her roughly. It's not what she expected, but it what's she got, and she's Lily, and he's Lysander, so she kisses him back. They're moaning, and their tongues are mingling, and _yes _she's dating his twin, but who cares? No one else is there but them two.

"No one finds out," she says quickly as he's peppering kisses all over her flushed face.

"'Course, love."

.:.

They stick to broom closets and empty corridors and pray to Merlin they won't get caught. Hogwarts is itching for a scandal; there hasn't been one since James and Dominique. He learns every curve of her body, and she can now verify that he has one-hundred and seven freckles on him. Her lips are plump and pink; his are thin and scarlet. She tastes like peppermint and smoke and whiskey; he tastes like parchment and cherries and something else she can't quite place.

_LilyandLysander _is a completely forbidden combination, and it's why he's always stressed, and why she loves him so. She loses her virginity to him one cool night in the Astronomy Tower, and the fact she still has it floors him. He doesn't say so in the moment.

"And to think, I thought you weren't at all innocent," he mutters hours later. They're naked, and she's curled up next to him, fighting back sleep.

"I'm not," she replies softly.

"Are so."

"_Ly._" She's tries to convince him with that one word and sits up, lighting a fag. The smoke makes him cough, but he tries to cover it up. She's addicted now, he knows; he would never say so.

They sit in silence, until he ruins it. "Why are you still with Lorcan?"

"I love him," she replies, looking up at the stars. They are so pretty and shiny, and she wishes she could be like that. "But… I love you, too."

He stares blankly at the staircase. "Both of us? He's my _brother_."

"I know." She smiles. "You're spontaneous, and he's level-headed. You're a genius, while he has to work for his grades. You're all leather jackets and motorcycles, and he's sweater vests and reading. You're polar opposites, and I love that."

"I… I have to go, love."

She sits there, watching him go.

.:.

As much as he wants to hate her, he can't. And so he keeps going to back to the fire-haired girl with blue and green and hazel eyes. He still knows everything about her, and he never ceases to quit surprising her.

"Let's go somewhere," she says one weekend, eyes sparkling. They go to the Whomping Willow, and she freezes it; James must've shown her. They walk in, and her lips are instantly on his. He takes her to the ripped up sofa that no one ever removed, and he takes off every bit of her clothing.

"I love you," she moans as he kisses every inch of her milky skin.

"I love you, too," he replies, meaning all three words, and kisses her. She takes off his clothes quickly, and it's just the two of them; there's not another soul around. _LilyandLysander_ isn't so wrong when they've gotten down to just them: two teenagers who don't always make the right decisions.

Giggling and chuckling quickly comes down the hallway, and they both look up in horror. Some brunette is scantily clad and on the arm of Lorcan.

"What the hell?" Lorcan yells.

"There's not much you can say!" Lily yells back.

All four stay silent.

.:.

"He hates me," he says to her. They're back in the bathroom where it began at the Potters' annual Christmas party. This time, though, she's sitting on the floor in nothing but her skivvies, but he doesn't mind.

"He hates me, too," she sobs out, and for the first time, it sinks in to him that she really did love them both.

"I'm sorry…" he whispers into her ear and just holds her.

"He was going to cheat on me anyway, but I cheated on him, too, with his _brother._"

.:.

They don't talk for the rest of the school year. He doesn't talk to Lorcan, and neither does she, but it seems like the other twin's already moved onto the brunette. He thinks he's passed all his NEWTs with flying colours, while she thinks she barely scraped by her sixth year.

It's graduation day, and of course she comes - just to torture herself.

"This is a day we never thought would come," he says, starting his speech. "We've lived for seven years in a bubble that is Hogwarts; now we have to leave and go out into the real world. We've made friends for life in this place and many amazing memories. There're a lot of regrets here, too, but it's better to focus on the good and the now. To this year's graduating class, I challenge you to remember your time here and know that Hogwarts will always be here to welcome you home."

She's pretty sure she's never heard truer words, and she sobs. He finds her afterwords.

"Lily… I'm an idiot. I should've never put you in the position I put you in with Lorcan. But, I need you. I want to be there to drink until we both pass out with you, to tell you that you need to quit smoking, and to tell you that I love you."

She runs, and he's left watching her retreating back.

.:.

He finds her alone years later. She's in an apartment in New York City wearing a tight and sparkling gold dress. Her hair is like it was at the Yule Ball so many years ago, and she's just as beautiful, even in the dark.

"Lily?" he calls out.

"Shit," he hears and a bang of foot on coffee table. "What in the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Seeing you," he whispers. The apartment smells like her kisses, and he briefly wonders how many boys she's had her wicked way with in there.

She sighs and wonders if he can hear her heart going a mile a minute.

"You need to go," she whispers, the eyes he loves so much closed.

"Why?" he asks.

"You just _do._ They'll… He'll… Be back for me. You _have _to go, Lysander."

"Lils," he says, reaching out for her, and she jerks away almost instantly.

"They'll hurt me," she says, almost inaudible, "and they'll… wicked things, Ly. He loves me, so it's okay for you to leave. He says his friends do, too. You just have to leave."

He inches closer to her and sees the marks and the bruises. His eyes close, and his world crashes down around him.

"Where's your wand, Lily Potter?" he asks, and she laughs as though the whole thing is funny.

"That's bad stuff, Ly," she informs him. He sees it, though, on the table. He grabs it and her wrist. _Pop!_

.:.

It takes her years to let him in. She moved into his flat in London the minute he stole her from the muggle man. Just like he promised all those years ago, they drink, and she smokes, and they don't care what anyone think. She's only just now letting him touch her; he won't hurt her or steal her innocence that's barely hanging on these days.

The first time she allows him to make love to her, she wonders why she'd forgotten what it was like and hadn't let him do it. It's bliss and heaven, and when she wakes in the morning, he's kneeling beside her place on the bed, on the floor.

"Lily Luna Potter, I love you. I've loved you everyday since I was seventeen. I'll never hurt you or hit you, and I'll always love you. Marry me?"

She can't imagine marrying anyone else - not even Lorcan anymore - and accepts with a kiss.

She smokes like a chimney and drinks too much whiskey. He's too smart for his own good. They may not be perfect for each other, but they aren't good for anyone else. She loves him, and he loves her, and they both know that was the only way it could be.


End file.
